MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has awarded the Order of Courage posthumously to Austrian Maria Langthaler whose family in 1945 sheltered two Russian prisoners of war who escaped from the Mauthausen concentration camp. The appropriate decree of the head of state was published on the official portal of legal acts on Monday.
"For selflessness, courage and valor displayed while rescuing Soviet prisoners of war during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, [I hereby decree] to award the Order of Courage to Maria Langthaler, a citizen of the Republic of Austria (posthumously)," the decree said.
The revolt and escape of over 400 Soviet servicemen from Mauthausen occurred on February 2, 1945. In order to apprehend them, Nazis conducted a hunt with the participation of SS units, militia and local residents. The majority of fugitives were apprehended and killed, only several prisoners managed to get away, including officers Mikhail Rybchinsky and Nikolai Tsemkalo who were sheltered by Maria Langthaler’s family at their home until the end of the war.
The daughter of Maria Langthaler who died after the war, Anna Hackl, was awarded with the honorary badge for friendship and cooperation of Russia’s Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation at the age of 88 in Vienna in 2020.
The Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria was established in 1938 as a subdivision of the Dachau concentration camp. During almost seven years of its existence over 100,000 people were killed there, including, by various estimates, over 30,000 Soviet citizens.